Last week team 2Shakes created and presented a paper mock-up of our solution to a bookkeeper.  It showed them how our digital sign up form might work, and was great for getting some initial feedback.  We will be asking for more feedback from bookkeepers this week to find out what is most valuable for them, and hence where to start making it better for bookkeepers.

We asked bookkeepers if they had issues getting set up to represent their clients. Below are some of the sorts of things we heard….

Quotes – Getting set up to do work for clients

“…clients just won’t take an hour out of their day to do it.  It’s frustrating.  Once we are in, it is so much easier for us to keep an eye on things.” 

“… you have to do a separate authority to deal with ACC. So we don’t normally bother to set them up….”

“…the kind of people I deal with don’t want to do additional paperwork.  They won’t go and do it…”

“…For insurance companies it would be good.   Because we don’t know what’s paid for vehicle insurance, for life insurance – it’s one bill.  But insurance companies will say, ‘sorry I can’t talk to you because you are not listed on the account’….”

So far we have talked to 25 bookkeepers around the country.  Here’s some statistics on who we have talked to:

Location 

41% Top of North Island, 32% Bottom of North Island, 27% in the South Island

Size

28% had 1 employee, 28% had 2 employees, 44% had 3 or more employees

Client Base

12% had 1-10 clients, 50% had 10-100 clients, 38% had more than 100 clients

Organisations bookkeepers deal with for clients 

100% deal with IR

80% deal with ACC, MBIE (Companies Office or former DoL), and Banks

50% deal with Insurance, Phone companies, Utilities, Suppliers

30% deal with Statistics NZ

10% deal with other organisations such as Lawyers, NZTA, Masterbuilders, etc.

Working with Government and Private Organisations

We are continuing to discuss our team’s ideas and how they will work with government and private organisations.  We have had meetings with staff from MBIE, IR, NZBN, Business.govt.nz, GCIO and ACC.

Our paper mock-up was well received with agencies too, as was our visual representation of the many forms and duplicate information businesses are having to deal with – and that we want to save them from!

We continued to work with banks on their processes, and have also started to explore how we can work with insurance companies and other organisations as well.

And for good measure we took a trip through the Electronic Transactions Act to understand how that can help us deliver a solution that is trusted, secure and saves everyone involved time and stress.

Have a great week,

Team 2Shakes